Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Rather Callow, Mr. Rather

Is Dan Rather so piqued by his lack of a career these days that he's got nothing better to do than bash Katie Couric? Yesterday on MSNBC the veteran deposed news anchor gave Couric a tongue lashing for sullying the evening news by, in his estimation, "dumbing it down" and "tarting it up."

Mostly, this is just embarrassing for Dan, who, before engineering his own demise, really was a trusted name in journalism. Now, he's just another old man throwing around sexist remarks at a woman who could be his daughter and probably makes four times what he ever did in that spot. (Even CBS chief Les Moonves saw sexism in what Rather said.)

Sad, really. Very sad. Not that I don't agree with the idea that television news has slid, perhaps inexorably, into the tabloid genre--but it just seems so tasteless for one anchor to say these kind of trashy things about another. Or perhaps Rather is our proof that, even though we couldn't see it, television has been trashy all along.